Page 22 of Conquered Betrayal
“Yeeeaaaah,” she said. “But the guy called Landon a half dozen times, and left about the same number of messages as Landon’s secretary. Less than some other friend named Brooke, though.”
An icy chill washed over me. We had information Landon wanted and we’d kept it from him. He was right to be angry. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” Nausea swirled in my stomach. He’d mentioned a Brooke earlier too.
“You didn’t ask.”
And I wouldn’t have. I wouldn’t have wanted to invade his privacy like that, to hear his messages, but at least we could have told him people were trying to get a hold of him for the past two days.
I rubbed a frustrated hand over my face. “For fuck’s sake, Marley.” I didn’t know what else to say. “It’s like you’re trying to get him to hate me more or something.”
“Look,” she said, finally turning to me with a placid expression. “It’s no big deal. As soon as he connects to his network, he’ll get his backlog of messages.”
It would be pointless to try and track him down now. He’d probably already downloaded those messages. A faint ache buzzed behind my eye.
Alina frowned at me. “When you say ‘Walker Hayles,’ do you meanthe‘Walker Hayles’?”
“Yeah.”
“No shit.” Alina’s eyes sparkled with admiration. “That guy is legendary.”
“I know.”
“He had a stellar rep in the military, then he went into special ops and there were always stories about the amazing missions his team pulled off.”
“I said I know.” I never told my brother the stories I’d heard, the rumors within our ranks. It was the beginning of my rebellion against him, a small act.
Walker’s team had a beast on their side. After seeing what a pair of them could do to a grizzly, terrorists didn’t stand a chance. Had his special ops team known what he was?
I rubbed the sudden chill out of my fingers and came up behind Marley’s chair. “You have Landon on your tracker program, right?” It was only a precaution. If Emerson got his hands on him, I needed to know where to send the rescue party.
“Yep,” she said with a click of her computer keys. “He’s coming in loud and clear.”
I knew I should feel guilty about having the guy tagged, especially when I viewed listening to his messages as an invasion of privacy, but my anxiety concerning my brother’s willingness to harm others was sky-high. He was a narcissistic sociopath through and through. If he perceived Landon to be a threat, he’d neutralize him. Knowing Landon wasn’t in Emerson’s clutches was the only way I could concentrate on the mission at hand.
The red blinking light headed toward downtown and I tensed.Please don’t return to your hotel.I thought I’d made an impression there, that he’d take my warning seriously.
I pressed my fingers against the ache blooming across the bridge of my nose. If I had to go on a rescue mission to save Landon from my brother, I was going to be seriously pissed off.
And who the fuck is Brooke?
8
LANDON
“Haveyou ever wished you were someone else?”
Her soft voice whispered against my bare shoulder. I’d thought she’d fallen asleep, and I lifted my head to see her better. Shrouded in darkness, her eyes appeared haunted.
Worry tensed my muscles. I brushed my knuckles over her cheek, then squeezed her against me. “If I were someone else, then I wouldn’t be here with you.”
My answer seemed to startle her. She jerked, then blinked at me in the dark. Her body softened, her glazed expression dissolving into a smile. “I suppose that’s true.”
* * *
My hands clenched and unclenched in my lap as the taxi drove into Metro Detroit, the residential area Jolyn had taken me morphing into the more recognizable buildings of downtown. I needed an outlet for all my emotional turmoil.
I wanted to hate Jolyn Mahn but found I couldn’t. And I loathed myself because of it. I allowed her to get under my skin, worm her way into my heart, and it had all been a masquerade—an opportunity to make profit off my stupidity. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why my bear didn’t want to attack her outright for all the emotional upheaval she’d sent my way, but he remained steadfast in the belief Jolyn and I belonged together.
I couldn’t believe it any longer, not after what she’d done.
